Kado
by Arkaidy
Summary: Spoilers: Ningen, Rabusongu. After returning from Chikyuusei, things are never going to be the same for Ningen and Rurutip. Part Three, Series Conclution
1. Kado

"Kado: Part Three of the 'Ningen' Trilogy"  
-By Vega  
  
***  
Author's Notes: Rated R for some nasty language and adult sitches.  
  
Thanks: To LISS, who is my inspiration and model for the 'bad-tempered one' With out you and your drawings, she'd be 2D.  
  
And to Logan. Please, where ever you are, know that everything I've ever posted since your first review, I don't consider good enough until you review it. Contact me, please.  
  
New Language:  
  
Chikyushu = bastard  
Shine = DIE!  
  
***  
  
I screamed and Rurutip held me down as I flailed.  
  
"No, no no!" I shrieked, and he snarled in my face, fingers curling around my shoulders so hard that bruises began to form. "No no no nonoooo!"  
  
"Shut up!" Vejii snarled from nearby, hands clamped over his ears. "For kami's-sake, Maria, it's not the end of the god-damned universe!"  
  
"Shut UP!" Ru snapped and I finally calmed, more afraid of his anger than anything else. "The HELL is wrong with you, woman?!"  
  
"I don't WANT to!" I bawled back, tears filling my eyes.  
  
Ru lifted his hand as if to slap me, then sighed and ran it through his hair. "His Majesty is correct. It's not the end of the world."  
  
"I CAN'T be!" I sat up from the med. table and crossed my arms stubbornly. "I am NOT PREGNANT!"  
  
And then, because it was still early morning, I sprang to me feet as my stomach began to convulse and ran to the closest bathroom, praying that I wouldn't vomit on the floor.  
  
***  
  
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome back.  
  
Ningen here. Lover of Rurutip. Pseudo-Mother of King "Vejii" Vejiita-ou. Slave to the Saiya-jinn race. And, six months after I returned from my disappointing and disastrous visit to Chikyuu-sei.... Mother to be.  
  
Oh, you can be damn sure Ru wasn't getting any for WEEKS after I discovered what he had done.  
  
You think this sort of thing would at LEAST require my permission. But did he ask me? Oh, HELL no...  
  
But, the sex was the best we'd had in years after I had returned from Chikyuu-sei, so I hadn't really complained that one night that Rurutip seemed to be doing some really odd and kinky things.  
  
Sex wasn't as comfortable and casual as it had been in the past sixteen years -not that that stuff had been boring - but Ru had this underlying... passion ... to him. Like he was making damn sure I knew that he was happy I'd chosen him over my own kind; over Tony. Like there was ANY chance of THAT.  
  
On one particular night, it was MUCH better than the rest.  
  
I had groaned and rolled over sometime past midnight, out of Ru's grasp, and buried my face in the pillows.   
  
"Please, have a little sympathy." I whined when I felt his large, warm hands begin to roam down my back. I have always been a 'hands' girl -I find long, slender, well cared for hands VERY attractive - and when he touched me like that, my whole body sprang to life despite my obvious exhaustion, eager for a repeat performance.  
  
"Hn." He snorted gently into my ear, sidling up behind me so we could 'spoon'. In that position, my backside pressed up against his stomach (he's a TALL guy, okay?) I could tell EXACTLY what he was thinking, and with which head.  
  
"Oh, gimmie a break!" I wailed.  
  
"No," Ru whispered, tongue flicking out. "You smell too good tonight."  
  
"That's 'cause I'm in the middle of my cycle." I said blatantly, trying desperately to kill the mood.  
  
But Ru would not be swayed and he trailed his hands down my back again, this time pausing to caress by bottom. I shivered in delight, and gave up. Ru was going to win... AGAIN.  
  
Turning to face him, I let my hands to their own exploring and tugged playfully on his tail. What was pressing into my stomach suddenly got a lot firmer, and Ru gasped, his head thrown back.   
  
Then he rolled us and pinned me down onto the pillows and smirked.  
  
"Keep that up, and you won't like what I do."  
  
"Ru, honey," I smiled back, "I've seen ALL your tricks."  
  
"You think so?" he murmured suggestively, taking my words as a challenge. "We'll see."  
  
His face dipped out of my view and I craned my neck to see what he was doing. When I felt his hot little tongue caress the inside of one of my thighs I shuddered and arched towards him. He blew gently on the wet patch he had created, then ran the soft outer hairs of the tip of his tail over the area too.  
  
I shivered in ecstasy.  
  
"Well, THAT'S new..." I murmured, looking down at where he was kneeling between my knees.  
  
"It gets better..." he smiled, and his tail began to wander everywhere.   
  
I gasped when I felt it push up against my entrance and giggled a little. Oh, this was new indeed!  
  
***  
  
That was night I got pregnant. Goddamned man. He got me so excited and so worn out that I didn't notice that he had actually worn himself out to; in the effort it took to make sure the stuff he made was the real deal, he had exhausted himself, desperate to mate.  
  
I think it was the first time he had ever fallen asleep before me.  
  
***  
  
Anyway, lets skip back ahead to the morning I found out I was pregnant. I'd been sick to my stomach every morning for a week, and thinking it was just a stomach flu I must have picked up six months earlier on Chikyuu-sei, I asked Ru to take me to the Med Labs. We had met Vejii on the way, and, curious as to why my face was pale and sweat-sheened, he had wanted to come too.  
  
When the doctor told me that I wasn't sick, I was expecting, I flipped on Ru. I mean, he didn't even ASK me! He just... DID it!   
  
Vejii laughed all the way back to his own chambers, and wished Ru luck with me.  
  
So, either vomiting too much to speak to Rurutip, or too mad, we said not a word to one another that day until, around sunset, he came and dragged me from the bathroom and wrapped me into a robe and plunked me rather forcefully into a chair at his little dining table.  
  
My insides tightened at the scent of the food thereon, from both nausea and hunger. I covered my mouth with my hand.   
  
Now, I know what you're going to say, "Morning sickness only happens in the morning". Yeah, I wish. Not when you're a human carrying a Saiyan, it doesn't. It lasts ALL day for MONTHS.   
  
Saiya-jinn females waltz around all day as if they weren't even carrying another life inside them; Me, my new favourite place was right beside the toilet. I even pulled a few pillows and a blanket in there for the days it was really bad. But that's me getting ahead of myself again...  
  
Anyway, having plopped me into the chair, Ru then took his own and snarled "Eat. I won't have you starve to death."  
  
"I wasn't planning to." I sulked, crossing my arms over my belly with realizing it. "I just don't feel like eating today. That's all."  
  
He grunted as if he didn't believe me, and pushed a platter of 'rushga' towards me. To this day, I still don't know what the stringy, brown-sauced stuff is made of, but it's good warm, and tastes faintly of ginger and cinnamon.  
  
Ru didn't make it, of course (he couldn't burn toast); we 'ordered-out' from the palace kitchens like most warriors, as it were. And Ru didn't like my Chikyuu-jinn concoctions much.  
  
Imagine that, a Saiya-jinn that was a picky eater. Has Hell froze over yet?  
  
I stared at the 'rushga' in front of me, disinterested in food in general, and merely picked at it with my utensils.  
  
Finally, when I could stand the heavy silence no more, I looked up at Ru and asked, "Why did you do this?"  
  
He stared at me as if I were a moron, and for a moment I feared that he thought I was asking him why he had gotten us dinner. But then I saw the hastily-repressed hurt on his face, and knew he knew what I meant.  
  
"Because I wanted to." He answered simply, shoving a handful of rushga into his face. "And it was the full moon last week. I wouldnt've had the chance for another eight years. "  
  
I stood abruptly. "Is THAT how you justify this!?" I wailed, flailing my arms in the air like a mad woman. "Not only did you NOT bother to ask ME, the one stuck with this THING in my body for nearly a year, but you're really willing to bring a life form, an innocent, impressionable CHILD into a relationship like ours, one without true lo--" I snapped a hand over my own mouth before I could finish the sentence, horrified at my words.  
  
"LOVE!?" Ru snarled, shooting to his own feet. "Is THAT what you were going to say?!"  
  
I closed my eyes and bowed my head, ashamed of myself and my rash, hurtful words.  
  
Ru made a strange sound, which after a few seconds I interpreted as a heart-felt sigh. I looked back up, and had to repress a gasp of shock as I realized that Rurutip's lovely ashen eyes were sparkling with unshed tears.  
  
"Do you really think I would have done this if I thought that?" He hissed, head lowered, glaring at me angrily from beneath viscously drawn eyebrows.  
  
Then he stormed out of the room, leaving me to stare stupidly at the spot where he had been, one hand resting lightly on my stomach, my chest heaving.  
  
***  
  
After the morning sickness came the awful cramps. I was hungry ALL the time. It was like the kid just couldn't get enough food. I did nothing but eat for hours and hours on end, and Vejii soon gave up on ever seeing me away from Ru's table. I wasn't to appear in court again until the child was almost six months old.   
  
Vejii was, at least, kind enough to visit me every few days, just to see how I was coping. It was hard not seeing him everyday, as I was used to it. He was, after all, my little boy still, even if he was sixteen years old, and the King of the Saiya-jinn Empire.  
  
He often made fun of me for eating like a Saiyan. I told him rather bluntly one day that not only am I eating FOR a Saiya-jinn, but for a human on top of that.  
  
Ru would have hit me for something so blatantly rude, but Vejii just laughed. I think he was very happy that I was having a child, as he had often wondered what it would be like to have a sibling. Oh, we both knew that the kid wouldn't be his brother or sister biologically, but he was determined to treat it as one.  
  
And Vejii was very stubborn when he set his mind to things.  
  
There was a lot of trouble over the fact that my child would be a half-ling, impure, bastard offspring of a first-class Saiyan and a Chikyuu-jinn slave bitch. Normally the baby would be destroyed, and if the Saiyan was feeling particularly nasty, the concubine as well. However, such an occurrence was rare as Saiya-jinn could control their fertility, and this was a special case because it had the approval of the Prince.  
  
Also, I'm sure the scientists of Vejiita-sei were curious about the possibilities of Saiya-jinn/ Chikyuu-jinn mating. It was obvious it could be done, as Gohan had been born all those years ago, but when Kakarotto had vanished, he had taken his son's corpse with him, so they'd never had the chance to study the halfling.  
  
Bardock had kept his son and grandchild almost a secret when they had first be captured and brought back to Vejiita-sei, and no one save himself and his other son, Radditzu, had been allowed to see them, outside of the Royal family. Therefore, no DNA samples.  
  
When Vejii learned the story of Kakarotto, he had sent dozens of squads out to search the galaxy for the SuperSaiya-jinn, determined to learn his secret. He even upped his own training regiment, but was unable to do so by much because of his duties as King.  
  
All that ever came back were vague reports of a golden-haired Saiya-jinn that stayed in space-ports or crumby hotels when he could find them for a few days before moving on to an unknown destination. There were uncertain and vague stories of him adopting abandoned human/sayain children.  
  
The last confirmed sighting was almost five years ago, and so Vejii had all but given up. He recalled all but one of the squads to Vejiita-sei, and left the last one with standing orders to track down and bring back Kakarotto... alive.  
  
I think Vejii nearly forgot about Kakarotto over the years, but sometimes I would still find him out in the garden, screaming up at the night sky, "WHY HIM!?"  
  
  
***  
  
After the horrible stomach cramps came the constant bruises.  
  
The kid WAS a Saiya-jinn, after all, and like all Saiya-jinn he was fighter and he felt the need to train.... inside of ME.  
  
I just wish he could have waited until he was out of my womb. Might have been easier for me.   
  
As it was, I spent a lot of time in bed, my arms wrapped around my middle, fighting not to scream or sob. Rurutip grew very worried when this began, afraid that I would be injured by the child inside of me doing metaphorical backflips and roundhouse kicks.  
  
My spine was entirely too close to the child for Ru's liking, but the medical technicians said that the kid was staying away from that area, almost as if by instinct. They found that interesting, and tested it throughly. And let me assure you now, nothing they did hurt either me or my child.   
  
Vejii would have turned them inside out if they did, and Ru would have then turned them back right-side in.  
  
Saiyan women usually didn't carry their young much longer than two of their six month gestation period. Then the offspring were removed from the womb and 'grown' in cold, sterile tubes in a lab, or sort of grand nursery. However, I didn't want my child to go through that, and so had fought to carry him or her myself.  
  
At first the technicians, when I had reached the two-month stage, actually CAME INTO Ru's room to forcefully DRAG me back to the lab and extract the fetus. I screamed the entire way, kicking and biting where I could, but in the end it was Vejii's complaint of the noise I made that stopped them from going through with it.  
  
I was grateful to him like I hadn't been in years and wept at his feet until Rurutip was summoned to collect me.  
  
As the baby got older, and more fully developed, actual bruises appeared on the outside of my belly. Again Ru was concerned, and wanted me to go into a regen tank every once and a while to clear them up, but I feared what it would do to the baby, and so refused.  
  
I therefore spent many a day moaning in bed, just counting off the days on my fingers. "Three more months... two more months... one more month.... one more week... oh, gawd!"  
  
The estimated date of birth for the child was, according to our Julius Calender, exactly seven months and three days after conception: November 27th.  
  
My child was going to be a Sagittarius. He was going to yearn for adventure and new heights constantly. But at least he would always know where home was.  
  
I don't know how well that was going to sit between Ru and I. I was a Libra, the peace maker, the analyser, and (if he hadn't been lying) I had deduced that he was a Scorpio, deep but controlling. And how do you control someone who constantly seeks new horizons?  
  
It's not like I was all into the whole astrological thing, you know. It's just that I found it fascinating that these things were always so close to being right. I was Libra through and through.  
  
So, the day my baby was born -the exact day predicted- the bruising and vomiting and cramps were at their worst. I vaguely recall wondering if Kakarotto's human mate had suffered as much as this for Gohan.  
  
I remember waking up that morning, groaning horribly. I think Ru shook me awake. He'd been real antsy the last five or six weeks because I'd been so sick that it was ill-advised that we had sex. I suppose he really missed it. I didn't. I never wanted him on top of me again, just in case he tried to pull another disaster like this.  
  
So, when I was moaning and sweating in my sleep, more so than usual, he shook me back to consciousness, and I was moderately gratified to see genuine worry writ on his face.  
  
"Mayra!" He hissed,"What's wrong!"  
  
"I think he's trying to rip me apart," I moaned.  
  
He scooped me up and ushered me into the birthing area of the med labs. This place was usually only used for Royal births because only the Prince's mother carried her child to full term. But, because it was the only "maternity" area on the whole bloody planet, Vejii had agreed to let me give birth there.  
  
And GAWD, was I happy he did! Pain-killers are wonderful things, really. Not that a Saiya-jinn would bother with them, but for me, they were heaven-sent.  
  
I lost track of the hours; I lost track of the pain. I sort of just shut down.  
  
And when the med technicians finally held the screaming child in front of my sweat-beaded face I gently smiled and proceeded to pass out.  
  
***  
  
At the same time, back on Chikyuu-sei, a young woman was also giving birth to a half-breed Saiya-jinn. Unfortunately, she was not as lucky as I, and had no doctors to attend her.  
  
She died giving her wailing daughter life in a squalid inner-city alley.  
  
Only a few steps away the Saiya-jinn father who had refused to aide her finally sat up to wrinkle his aristocratic nose at the stench of a new corpse and fetal blood. He stepped up to lift the tiny, venerable babe by her tender tail.  
  
The baby SCREAMED.   
  
"Oh, DO shut the fuck up." The father said and proceeded to rip his daughter's head off.  
  
For a moment he stared at the bright blood pooling on the alley floor. "Damn girl." He snorted. "Who needs a fucking female?" He tossed first the child's head to one side, then the body to the other.  
  
With a contemplative stroke of his waxed mustachio, the tall, almost painfully slim Saiyan turned his glittering onyx eyes back to the stiffening corpse of his latest conquest.  
  
Oh, how lovely she had been! Humans were such wonderfully pathetic things when they were pregnant with Saiya-jinn children. The pain that contorted her attractive features had been no less than breathtaking to him.  
  
A pity the children were never any good. Damn weakling halfling brats. He'd had to kill so many... they were just so weak.  
  
With a small smile he headed towards the corpse of the mother, lust evident on his face. Just because she was dead didn't mean she couldn't provide him with a little amusement.  
  
But before he could reach the body, a golden flash cut him off. He turned his eyes to glare with furious indignation at the figure on a nearby roof-top that had thrown the ki in his way.  
  
"Leave her alone!" the other Saiya-jinn shouted in outrage, "You've done enough, Epinard! I'm going to stop you once and for all!"  
  
Epinard paused for a moment, then threw back his head, his slicked-back hair bouncing in it's braid with his laughter. "You?! You've had your chance, traitor!" he spat. "And you did not kill me! You could not! You're far too WEAK!"  
  
The other Saiyan snarled furiously, his hair whipping up and bleaching blond. "Stop, Epinard! Or this time I will not hesitate to kill you!" One furious emerald eye glared at the other Saiya-jinn. Th remains of his other eye was trapped behind an eyepatch that this same foe had given him years ago.  
  
"Tell me another fairy story, oh great Super-Saiya-jinn!" Epinard returned mockingly, a malicious grin on his slim face.   
  
With that he took off into the sky and was gone. His adversary didn't have the heart to chase him down today.  
  
The Saiya-jinn on the roof top sighed, the golden aura fading from his body, his tail tightening marginally around his waist with his anxiety. He had purposefully grown his tail back years ago, so he could be stronger; so he could slip unnoticed among the ranks of the other Saiyans that moved about the galaxy.  
  
A little girl came forward from the shadows, no more than twelve, her Saiya-jinn heritage apparent by her own tail, her human side revealed in her sparkling green eyes and long, flowing teal hair. She tugged on the man's loose, sleeve-less, black gi.  
  
The man placed a tender had on the top of her head. "Hai, Aleta-chan?"  
  
"Is the baby gone?"  
  
The man sighed, heart-broken. "Hai, we were too late."  
  
"Oh." the little girl said, the eldest of his haphazard adoptive brood. "Then the next one, right Gokuu-sensei? We'll save the next one."  
  
"Hai." Gokuu said, turning his visible now-black eye to the sky. "We'll save the next one."  
  
***  
  
I did not know that poor woman, nor her child.   
  
But I was soon enough to meet Epinard... and become re-acquainted with his rival.  
  
***  
  
When I awoke in Ru's rooms once again, the painkillers having worn off and the tell-tale reek of regen-gel about me, I heard the desperate screams of a starving Saiya-jinn child in the next room.  
  
I recognized the sound, the particular pitch of it, from when Vejii had been a child, and I ached to console the baby.  
  
Stiffly I rose, dressed, and peeked my head out into the sitting room. Rurutip sat cross-legged on the floor, the baby -who, remarkably, could already sit up by himself- was wailing in the small space Ru's legs created, pulling on his father's tail with a hungry urgency.  
  
Ru only stared at the child as if unsure what to do with it. He hadn't even put clothes on the kid yet.  
  
With a soft smile, and a small snort of amusement, I lifted a towel from the rack by the bedroom door and knelt in front of Ru, wrapping the goose-bumped child in it and noticing happily that it was a boy.  
  
I had a son!  
  
"Don't coddle him," Ru snarled. "He'll grow dependant and weak."  
  
"I've raised a Saiyan before." I said back, unaffected by his curt tone, "Remember? And Vejii turned out pretty well."  
  
"Hn." Ru snorted. "The King still reads too much."  
  
I bared a breast to feed my boy, and saw Ru stare at it, like he was jealous that the boy was getting what HE wanted.   
  
"Later." I murmured, and he seemed satisfied with that promise. "What have you named him?"  
  
"I did not." Ru said haughtily. "I cannot think of a suitable name."  
  
I mulled this over before suggesting a few very Chikyuu-jinn names that had been my favourites: Nicholas, James, Alexander... the list went on and Ru proclaimed them all to be unfit. I delved into other languages, into history: Titus, Frollo, Ceaser. He gainsaid them all.  
  
"Then, Kado." I said finally and he paused to blink at me.   
  
"What does it mean?"  
  
" 'The Gateway.' "  
  
Ru thought for a moment, tail twitching, thumping rhythmically against the carpet. Then he said, "It seems appropriate. Kado."  
  
The child in my arms paused in his feeding only long enough to gurgle his approval.  
  
***  
  
I did not know it, but as Rurutip and Kado and I were enjoying our first 'family' time together, Epinard had returned to Vejiita-sei. When the rumours of a First-Class warrior had bred with a HUMAN met his ears, he was intrigued and decided that he wanted to have a little fun with this -with MY- newfound happiness.  
  
However, as soon as he was recognized, his squad was sent to Ieart-sei to get rid of the damned Royal family. That princess just wouldn't leave Vejii alone, and his normally smooth patience had frayed.  
  
Epinard, after that, was sent to a particularly far planet for collecting, and so was not to return to Vejiita-sei for another thirteen years.  
  
Nor was his arch rival, or his small brood of rescued Saiya-jinn/Chikyuu-jinn half-breeds. They were too busy trying to give every child they found a peaceful and happy existence.  
  
I am sad to say that there were a lot of human/Saiyan hybrids. Though Saiya-jinn men can control their fertility, HUMAN men cannot, and there were a great many accidents. It pissed the Saiya-jinn females off to get pregnant, and the fetus' were often destroyed.  
  
If any lived to see the light of day they were slaughtered or abandoned to death wherever they had been birthed.  
  
Gokuu and his 'children' saved those that they could and gave them a family.   
  
And for the next thirteen years, as Gokuu and Epinard fought their ding-dong battles across the galaxy, the former never screwing up the courage to kill the latter, a few select children of the Earth Saiyan's brood were training.  
  
They were determined that one day they were going to find a way to convince Vejii that the Saiya-jinn empire would be better off to fight for peace rather than gain.  
  
And in the meantime, my son, Kado, was growing up.  
  
***  
  
Kado brushed the sweat-heavy mousey brown bangs from his eyes and began his katas all over again, his concentration broken by my humming in the next room over.  
  
"Okassan!" he bawled, as rude as his father. "Shut up! I can't THINK and father wants me to know these katas by sundown!"  
  
"Now, Kado-kun." I answered softly, my voice wafting in from where I was trying to compose a new song, "What do civilized people say when they want something?"  
  
"Please." he reluctantly ground out, sparkling amber eyes narrowed hatefully.  
  
"Much better." I responded, glad at least THAT had stuck in his thirteen-year old mind. Sometimes, I swear, it was like pulling teeth. But I stayed quiet for him nonetheless.  
  
He resumed his katas, and I resumed my writing, until he grew too tired and crawled up onto the chair beside me, his tail wagging. "Watcha doin'?"  
  
"Writing a new song."  
  
"Again?"  
  
"Hai."   
  
Kado smiled and puffed out his little chest. "I don't need to sing for the king to recognize me! I'll fight like Otousan!"  
  
"Yes, I know." I answered back, pretending not to be hurt by his callous words. We both knew it was his fate to murder his father one day and take his place as a royal guard. I was just glad that day was still years off. "But Vejiita-sama already recognizes you, Kado."   
  
My son puffed out even more. He was the only child ever to have sparred with the King – and been able to keep up with him. Vejii however was still far to agile and intelligent a fighter for the brute strength Kado employed to work.  
  
But, Kado was STRONG; stronger than he should have been with my weak blood in him, and he was well on the fast-track to becoming an Elite. For that, and for his unwavering determination, I was proud of him.  
  
My son was never arrogant. He was intelligent, and educated, and -when you got him away from his first passion, sparring- he was an avid reader. Once you put a Dickens novel in his hand, you'd never see him again until he was done it.  
  
"Okassan, I'm going to see Aurek-san." He said matter-of-factly, hopping down from the chair and heading towards the door. He didn't need to ask permission from me (after all, I was still only a slave and he was considered under the law a full-blooded Saiya-jinn so I had to obey his orders, even though I was his mother) but I liked to know where he was nonetheless.  
  
"Okay." I said softly and bowed my head once more to the sheet music before me. "Be home for dinner."  
  
"I'd never miss food!" Kado said brightly, and in a flash of ki was gone.  
  
I sighed after my little boy (little, what am I saying, 'little'?! He was five and a half feet tall already!), and smiled.  
  
***  
  
A lone space pod tumbled back to ground and when it had safely landed, a painfully slim Saiya-jinn emerged.   
  
"Welcome back, Captain Epinard." A nearby guard said, saluting, but the man ignored him.  
  
Laughter broke the silence and two young boys, one obviously Saiya-jinn, though oddly light-hued in hair and eyes, and another, an elfin boy with large pointed ears and big black eyes, raced by, the former attempting to catch the latter.  
  
Epinard glared at them hatefully and went about his business.  
  
And not far behind him, Gokuu's own space pod raced to catch up before it was too late.  
  
In their last battle, Epinard had let something slip about a surviving Saiya-jinn/Chikyuu-jinn hybrid on Vejiita-sei that he had meant to destroy thirteen years earlier.  
  
Gokuu - his determination evident in a scowl so much like his father's that, had he not been sporting an eyepatch, he would have been mistaken for Bardock - only prayed to a Kami he'd nearly given up on that he wasn't too late.  
  
***  
  
Aurek was a species known as the Piux-jinn. They are generally short as a rule, with large pointy ears, big black, almond shaped eyes, green-hued skin and flowing blond hair. They were a very friendly people, and adapted well to any situation.  
  
The Piux-jinn had been slaves of the Saiya-jinn empire much longer than Chikyuu's twenty nine years. So long that Aurek's grandparents had been born slaves.  
  
Aurek and Kado met when my son was about ten, and they'd been inseparable friends ever since, for although the Piux-jinn were lithe gangly creatures, they could move FAST, and Kado, in his younger years, had made it a game to try to catch Aurek.  
  
At first, Kado would grow angry when he could not catch up to the Piux-jinn, and sometimes beat him if he ever caught him, but Aurek showed him a few speed-secrets, and the boys fast became best buds.  
  
They were never apart for more than a day.  
  
***  
  
The next morning I sat up lazily, waking Ru, who'd had his arms wrapped around my middle.  
  
He snarled softly at me, then went back to sleep. "Baka no Onna." he muttered.  
  
I smiled and got up, opening the curtains. He groaned and hid his shaggy head under a pillow.  
  
"Ru-kun, you have to go greet the collecting crew that arrived last night, have you forgotten?"  
  
"Damn." I heard him curse, then he pulled himself to his feet. "Come, bathe with me."  
  
I nodded slowly and followed him to the bathroom, glancing around to make sure Kado had already left for his early-morning spar with Vejii. He had.  
  
An evil smile spread across my lips, and I jumped on Ru's back.  
  
***  
  
Epinard looked around the King's main audience chambers with an air of boredom. He tugged on his pencil mustache briefly, pondering.   
  
Around here, somewhere, would be the half-ling brat of the unnamed warrior and his Chikyuu-jinn bitch. It was just a matter of finding out which warrior had been dumb enough to first impregnate and then KEEP the child, and kill him - or at least get him out of the way, if he was a higher form of Elite than Epinard himself. That way, there'd be a human bitch to impregnate and play with (one whom he knew it would take on) and a brat to experiment with.   
  
And, Oh! To have a fully-trained demi-Saiya-jinn! How amusing it would be to rip the little thing to pieces!  
  
And there wouldn't be anything that that damned Kakarotto could do about it.  
  
Epinard frowned briefly.  
  
Damn that Kakarotto. How dare he call himself SuperSaiyan? He wasn't even a true SAIYAN, let alone the super variety.  
  
Kakarotto had hesitated to KILL.  
  
More than once, if Epinard had been keeping count correctly. Almost ... was the number nearing fifty now? Kakarotto had had the opportunity to destroy him more than once, and each time he could not bring himself to do it, and so Epinard had escaped.   
  
Damn, fifty times Kakarotto had won, and the only damage he'd done to show for his continued survival and honour Epinard had was three sets of scars and an eyepatch. He had managed to gouge out Kakarotto's right eye a few years back... then there was the strange star-shaped scar on his left cheek and the slash over his collar bone.   
  
The collar bone scar was from the time Epinard had tried to rip Kakarotto's treacherous heart from his chest. He had actually felt it his fingers on it before Kakarot had pulled away! The one on his cheek Epinard had made during their first battle after some blue-haired human bitch's death. He had done it to spite Kakarotto, to remind him forever of where he came from by giving him a scar identical to Bardock's.  
  
Oh, yes, and the parallel scars that Epinard had scraped out of the flesh of Kakarotto's left arm, too. That had been... those were sword scars, weren't they?  
  
Epinard's frown grew deeper.  
  
Next time, however... next time he might not be so lucky. Kakarotto had come awfully close to doing it last time, and Epinard now had -thanks to his trip to the regen tanks- a very large, very itchy scar on his formally flawless chest.  
  
Damn that Kakarotto!  
  
He wasn't sure what irked him more, the fact that a traitor like Kakarotto was the Legendary SuperSaiya-jinn... or that his beautiful chest had been marred!  
  
Turning his thoughts away from his rival, Epinard stood at attention when the King and his personal entourage entered the room.  
  
Rurutip - the captain of the Royal Guard- stood at the foot of the dias, and the King took the throne, that bitch with the voice standing off to one side and the rest of his followers with her.  
  
Sighing inwardly, Epinard stepped forward to list off the quantities of each of the resources he'd collected on his last outbound trip, starting with the slaves.  
  
***  
  
I watched with half-boredom, half-pity as Epinard's crew boasted about their 'collecting'. The slaves I felt very sorry for, but they couldn't have been coming into a better system.  
  
At least here they'd still be treated like people. I'd heard of other places where they're treated much worse. I know that sounds callous of me, but I live in a world where slavery is legal - and there are far worse places to be in this universe than Vejiita-sei.  
  
When they were finished, the King dismissed them, and they stood to the side as a few other squads had their chances to boast. Then we were all dismissed.  
  
Epinard had been staring at me oddly the whole time we had been in the main audience chamber - not that that was too odd, a lot of people stared. But his eyes kept darting back and forth between me, Rurutip, and Kado, who was standing off to one side with me.  
  
He had come skittering in the room, breathless, after Epinard's presentation to stand as close the King as decorum allowed. He had really wanted to see this (even if he was a little late), and Vejii was always happy to show him the ropes of ruling.  
  
I had a suspicion that Vejii would have liked to have made Kado the next in line because of his obvious intelligence, politeness, and eagerness to fight, but it was not allowed. Besides, having to deal with the fact that Kado would one day kill Ru was hard enough on me, but to think that he might kill Vejii too...!  
  
Epinard looked at me again, and I accidentally locked eyes with him. A dark smile spread over his sharp face and I shuddered for some unknown reason. I suddenly decided that I did not like this man...  
  
... and then he stepped over to Rurutip and they began to speak.  
  
***  
  
I really was uncomfortable in Epinard's private chambers, but with Ru on one side of me, his tail wrapped around my hips in a clear gesture that screamed 'MINE' and Kado glaring at Epinard through his long, brushed-forward bangs, I felt much safer than I would alone.  
  
I ate in silence.  
  
Epinard continued to prattle on, waxing elegant on how delightful it was to be able to host the leader of the Squads and a Royal Elite at his table.  
  
And yet, every once and a while, I felt those cold, cold eyes turn to me; more than once I almost choked.  
  
Rurutip seemed oblivious to the silent aura of menace that Epinard seemed to ooze, but I felt it, and so too did Kado, for he and I exchanged glances on more than one occasion over the course of the evening.  
  
Epinard was planning something nasty, but for the life of me, I did not know what.  
  
***  
  
END PART ONE 


	2. SuperSaiya-jinn

Part Two: "SuperSaiya-jinn"  
  
***  
  
Gokuu looked hard and long at the city that sprawled out before him.  
  
Mere minutes ago he had landed his space pod on Vejiita-sei, in the great, dense forests to the South of the great capitol city. Thanking Kami that Bulma had had time to make of his escape pod a capsule before she had been murdered by Epinard seven years ago, he had depressed it and stuck the resulting capsule in his boot.  
  
Aleta had wanted to come to Vejiita-sei with him, but Gokuu had said rather plainly, "No."  
  
In the old days he would have loved the company on adventures. He remembered fondly the first time he met Bulma, and how he had broken Yaumcha's tooth in their first fight, and how he used to have to 'touch' to know if a person was a boy or a girl. How Piccolo had offered to help fight Radditzu and his squad when they had first arrived on Earth to find it 'un-purged', how he had thought that, perhaps together, they could stand a chance.   
  
Gokuu had seen Piccolo's blood before, but pooling on the ground like that, the Demon King's eyes and jaw slack, his antennae quivering in his death throes... it just hadn't seemed REAL.  
  
*Yaumcha, duck! Krillin, no, to your left! Oh, no, please! Radditzu, brother, please, I'm begging you! She is my mate! I am on my knees, please! Don't kill my wife...! CHICHI!!*  
  
Yaumcha... Krillin... Chichi... Gohan... Bulma...  
  
*"I promise Bulma, I promise."  
  
"You be careful, Son-kun. *Coff*"  
  
"Sleep well, Bulma. I won't let them do to Aleta what they did you, and Gohan. I'll take care of your baby. Of all the babies."  
  
"Aleta. That's a pretty name, Gokuu."  
  
"Yes. It is a pretty name. That's what Chichi and I were going to call Gohan, if he was a girl. 'Little Winged one'. She will fly Bulma, I promise. She will fly free."  
  
"Arigato, Son-kun."   
  
"Good-bye, Bulma. Good-bye."*  
  
He meek smile faded.  
  
No, he was not about to let Aleta go traipsing about the universe, 25 years old or not - she was saying on their hidden planet. She was all he had left of Bulma.  
  
He wasn't going to loose her to Epinard too.  
  
Epinard had raped Bulma, making her pregnant with Aleta. However, though Aleta may have been that bastard's offspring... she was Gokuu's DAUGHTER, dammit.  
  
And he wasn't about to watch anymore of his children die.  
  
He was going to kill Epinard, once and for all. He should have done it the first time they fought, after Bulma's death, he'd had the strength. But Gokuu hadn't had the heart to commit murder.   
  
But Epinard had escaped his eternal punishment one too many times. His fascination with the pain of a human woman while carrying a Saiyan child was getting out of hand, and it was no longer safe that Epinard remain alive. Gokuu had finally realized that Epinard really did not regret his actions - he wasn't going to change.  
  
So Gokuu was really going to kill this time. And if he had to, he was going to kill every other Saiya-jinn who got in his way too. Even if it meant going up against the King himself.  
  
With that vow in both his mind and heart, Gokuu began to walk towards the city, where he could sense Epinard's ki.  
  
It was time to end it.  
  
***  
  
"I don't want to stay behind." I said softly, and apparently Rurutip decided to ignore me and continue to pack away his armour. "I don't want to be alone for a whole month."  
  
"You won't be alone." he answered, tone gentle and eyes on his work. "Kado's here."  
  
"That's not what I meant."  
  
"Hn," he snorted, and turned to bite my lower lip, his version of a casual kiss. "I have been ordered on this mission, and there is no room for either you or my brat. You both stay here, and that is final."  
  
I lowered my head and said nothing as he strolled out of the bedroom. He didn't even pause to look back.  
  
***  
  
A week after his first arrival on Vejiita-sei, Gokuu was still having some trouble locating Epinard. Sure, he knew his rival was in the wings of the palace that held the Elite Royal guards and the Squad leaders who had no where else to live until their next mission; that much he had learned.  
  
But there were so many of them in there with blood-stained ki that it was practically impossible to pinpoint the exact room.  
  
And Gokuu HAD to find the right room, for all he wanted to do was slip in, slit Epinard's throat, and slip back out.  
  
There was no honour in it, to be certain, but Gokuu was not here for honour. He was here to eliminate a threat.   
  
And as much as he hated to be so methodical and cruel, so cold in his fighting, there was no other choice.  
  
An all out brawl would bring other Saiyans, and then Gokuu would be finished.  
  
There was no way they'd let a traitor live, SuperSaiya-jinn or no.  
  
The thought of his label - 'traitor' - made Gokuu smile. He'd never wish to be anything else when it came to the Saiya-jinn.  
  
***  
  
I watched with a heavy heart as Ru's ship blasted off without me.  
  
It wasn't often that I was alone for more than a day or two, and the empty swell of loneliness had begun to accumulate in my gut.   
  
What was I supposed to do for a whole MONTH without Rurutip?  
  
Lounge around doing nothing? Well, no, I suppose I was exaggerating things. I still had Kado to look after - make sure his sparring outfits were cleaned and repaired properly and all that; I swear that boy would go around naked if weren't there to remind him to wear clothes. And I still had Vejii to entertain.  
  
So, no, I wasn't going to be bored stupid just.... well, cold and lonely at night.  
  
I wasn't used to being alone in bed.  
  
Vejiita, who had been on the platform as well to see of Ru and the group of 'ambassadors', must have seen my distress, for he slipped over to stand beside me and said very very quietly, "He'll be back before you know it, Ningen."   
  
I nodded morosely.  
  
Then a bade my King an elaborate good-bye and went back to my rooms. I met Kado going out as I went in, and stopped him.  
  
"Oh no you don't." I said sternly, staring at my son's gi. "That thing's filthy. Turn around and get a new one."  
  
"But ... Okassan!" he whined, his amber eyes wide. "I was supposed to meet Aurek under the big tree!"  
  
I pointed back to the room and he went back inside, his tail dragging on the ground. He stripped as he walked, leaving discarded cloth all over the floor like his father does, and stomped into his own room. Within seconds he was changed and back out.  
  
I sighed and shook my head. What a character, my Kado.  
  
I then made a point of collecting the pieces of his gi and very happily tossed them in the trash. The once white of the material was now a sweat-stained, blood-tainted, torn parody of what it used to be, and I'd been trying to get Kado to toss it for weeks. But he was stubborn about clothing he'd worked in.  
  
I then looked around the sitting room, my hands on my hips, and sighed again.  
  
A whole month... with no sex.  
  
I groaned at the thought and resolved not to think on it anymore. I had to do something to clear my mind... and what better than a few laps in that big old bathing pool?  
  
It would be nice to be able to swim around a little without Ru there to tackle me.  
  
Having picked up Ru's habit too, I slid out of my dress as I strolled into the bathroom and flicked the switch that would make the pool heat up a little. I dumped my own soiled clothing in a tiny pile to the side and pulled the bottles of stuff and towels off the shelf and placed them on the ledge.  
  
That shampoo-stuff still smelled horrible. With all the technology they had in this vast universe, you'd think they'd figure out a way to make their shampoo smell nice. That had been one of the pleasant things about visiting Chikyuu all those years ago - scented hygiene products. Damn, did I ever miss those.  
  
I slipped into the rosy water, pulling the band out of my hair that held it up out of my face and relaxed against the side, breathing in the steam that rose from the surface gratefully.  
  
Letting my mind wander to earlier times, I could clearly recall the first time Rurutip tried to teach Kado how to swim. He had been about two at the time, and he was caterwauling something awful.  
  
Rurutip held him above the water, standing in the pool himself. Kado's tail was wrapped so tightly around his wrist that Ru's hand was going white.  
  
"Kado!" he kept snarling, "Let go!" but the kid wasn't stupid. Kado knew that there was water down there, and if he let go, he'd end up in it, which was a bad thing.  
  
So finally Rurutip just dropped Kado, and I - who had been staying out of it, sitting on the side, dangling my legs in the water - I screamed.  
  
"Ru, he'll drown!"  
  
However, Kado still had hold of Ru's wrist, and had by then learned that he could float very easily, and there was no danger of falling all the way if he just kept a grip on Ru. It was a little while after that - maybe an hour or so - that Kado felt confident enough to let go, and he began to splash around, spraying water everywhere and throughly exhausting himself.  
  
I had to carry him to his bed, and when I came back into the bathroom, Ru was all set for some splashing of his own.  
  
I smiled to myself in the memory of that pleasant afternoon. Rurutip had done some really fun things that time, and we had giggled more than we had kissed.  
  
I pondered that afternoon and decided that I wanted to have some tricks ready for Ru when he got back., so snuggled into my little place on the bottom step ( I was far too short for the benches that were along the side of the bathing pool) and began to day dream.  
  
A flush played along my nose and cheeks as I thought of some particularly fun ways to welcome my Rurutip home, and I leaned back, settling my neck and head between Ru's muscular, naked, thighs.  
  
I made a little happy sound. It was so nice of Ru to sit up on the second step like that so I could sprawl myself in his lap, he'd never done that for me before. His warm hands came down on my neck, but did not move in the familiar circular patterns that I had taught him a massage consisted of.  
  
And then, of course, I realized...  
  
This was not Rurutip.   
  
There was no way in HELL that whoever this was behind me was Ru. Ru was off-world.  
  
I squeaked in horror and tried to turn around, but the hands on my neck tightened and I could not move.  
  
"Who are you?" I panted, trying to ease out of the person's grip, but he -for the hands were far too large for it to be a woman - would not let me go.   
  
My chest began to rise and fall with panicked breaths, but I forced myself to be still. My old survival instincts kicked in; I had learned in the early years with Rurutip that fighting had only made everything worse for me, so I stayed very still.  
  
"You haven't answered me," I said softly, and my words earned me a light smack in the back of my head. However, neither of the hands moved, so I had to assume that I had been hit with a tail - therefore, my attacker was a Saiyan.  
  
"You talk too much, bitch." An oily, sleazy voice hissed in my hear, the breath it travelled on sour. "Rurutip hasn't beat you enough."  
  
I swallowed heavily, eyes stabbing from left to right, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man behind me.  
  
"I'll solve that soon enough," the sleazy voice chuckled. "I'll rip your voice box out - then you can't influence the King anymore, either."  
  
I whimpered, cringing away. Whoever this man was, he knew too much. No one was supposed to know that I was anything more than the evening's entertainment in court to Vejii.   
  
Unless... unless Vejii had told someone, or Rurutip...  
  
*Epinard turned to face me over the dinner table. "And that?" He looked back to Rurutip. "What's so special about that?"  
  
Ru spared me a guarded side-long glance. "I dunno." he shrugged. "I guess I just haven't gotten around to getting rid of her. She's a good slave. She does what she's told."  
  
I lowered my eyes demurely, playing my part of the social charade.  
  
"Ah." Epinard stroked his pencil mustache thoughtfully, and the light from the garish flourescent bars in his ceiling made his hair look like oil as he lowered his head. "And the King? You'll forgive me, Commander, I've been off Vejiita-sei so long, I've missed the politics of these years. Vejiita-sama seems to favour this slave."  
  
"She sings." Ru shrugged non-comittedly. "He likes to listen to what she says... in her songs."*  
  
I gulped. Yes, that was the only time that Rurutip had slipped. And that meant that the man behind me was...  
  
"Epinard."  
  
I was smacked again. "Epinard-SAMA to you, bitch."  
  
"Epinard-sama," I corrected myself, the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes, my mind falling into a panic. There was no WAY I'd be able to fight off an Elite like Epinard! And he'd strangle me before I could so much as scream for help.  
  
I had to do whatever he wanted. That's how I'd get out of this alive. Mangled... but alive.  
  
"Tell me, bitch," Epinard said lazily into my ear and I shivered as I felt him begin to nibble on the flesh just under my lobe. However, unlike when Ru did it, he was beginning to draw blood. "Were you in much pain when you were carrying your bastard child?"  
  
My only answer was a whimper as his hands slid around and down, trapping me firmly against his chest.  
  
"Human women are so lovely when they're hurting." he purred deep in his chest and lifted me up out of the water. I wiggled wildly, trying to get away, but only served to have the breath squeezed out of me.  
  
"Sadist!" I snapped on impulse when I realized that I could not fight my way out of his viscous grip, then hastily wished my rash insult back.  
  
"I'm going to fuck you." he snarled and pushed me onto my stomach on the bathroom floor, holding the back of my neck so I could not see him. I could tell by the feel of him against my back that he was already nude. "I'm going to make you pregnant. Then Rurutip will kill you for daring to fuck someone else. And I'll be able to do whatever I want with your son."  
  
I gasped in protest as he pressed his weight on top of me.   
  
Epinard chuckled and lifted my rump up into the air by wrapping his tail around my waist. I began to sob bitterly, fearing that he was right. Would Rurutip kill me for betraying his trust?  
  
"Kado, wasn't that the worthless little freak was called? I'll fuck him too. I'll rip his intestines out with each thrust. What do you think of that?"  
  
"Don't you touch my son!" I shrieked my fear burning away in a sudden backlash of unadulterated anger. "Do whatever you want to me, but if you hurt Kado I will find a way to kill you – from beyond the grave, if I must!"  
  
He laughed outright at that, and I dug my nails into the soft spaces between the tiles on the floor.  
  
"You're going threaten ME?"   
  
I snarled, and he laughed even more.  
  
"Oh, it's going to be fun, screwing YOU."  
  
I chewed on the bottom of my lip, eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking down my face as the cold air around me and the hot flesh of Epinard's stomach and thighs pressed against my ass raised goose bumps.  
  
"Enjoy it." I spat, deciding that if I was going to have to suffer through this humiliation, that I might as well make him nervous. "When Vejiita finds out, he'll rip you to shreds."  
  
"Our King!?" Epinard laughed and thrust forward, tearing into me. He seemed satisfied with my pained scream. "You've ensured that he won't." He thrust again, his fingernails digging into my hips, slamming against me so hard I swore I was about to break. Once more I screamed. "You and your silly morals have made him far to WEAK." Another thrust, another scream, and he began to grunt.  
  
I buried my head in my folded arms and wept.  
  
I realized that no one could hear me screaming. The doors were all shut. So were the windows.  
  
Epinard was really going to get away with raping me, and it would be seen as my fault. I would be punished for it. I tried to shut my brain down, ignoring the pain, the humiliation, the absolute, abject, earth-shattering TERROR.  
  
But another sound reached my ears besides my screams -was I really still screaming? It didn't feel like me anymore- and Epinard's strained grunts.  
  
This sound was a rather unexpected one, but welcome nonetheless.  
  
It was the sound of my son's voice.  
  
"Okassan?" I heard him shout, and I was torn between delight and horror.  
  
There was no WAY my little Kado had the kind of power necessary to fight Epinard... and win.  
  
"Okassan!" he called again and Epinard pulled away from me with a snarl. I tried to scramble away, but he grabbed my ankle and pulled me back into his arms, trapping me between his knees.  
  
"Answer him, bitch, and I'll rip your head off."  
  
I nodded slowly, the tears falling in rivers now. Kado was going to die!  
  
"Okassan!" came a third shout, this time angry. "Where the Hell are you?!"  
  
I heard a murmur of consultation between him and a voice I recognized as Aurek's, then the hiss of the bedroom doors sliding back. When he didn't find me in there, I knew he was going to try the bathroom next.  
  
As I predicted, the doors slid back and I tried to cover myself. Not that I was modest - Rurutip had explained such things as men and women and their bodies to Kado at a very young age- but I was terrified of his reaction.  
  
"Okassan, I want food--" Kado froze in the doorway as his amber eyes lighted on me tangled up in Epinard's lap.  
  
Epinard smirked. "Kobanwa, little bastard."  
  
"Ki-kisama!" Kado swore, his aura beginning to flare to life around him. Aurek peeked over his shoulder to see what was wrong and quickly covered his mouth in horror.  
  
"Let her go!" Kado snarled, his face darkening, "She belongs to Otousan! You can't touch her like that!"  
  
In defiance of Kado's words, Epinard ran his tongue along my neck and I gagged.  
  
"Stop it!" Kado said, glaring at Epinard, his eyes beginning to light up with that familiar battle lust. "I said STOP IT!"  
  
"Or what, bastard halfling?" Epinard laughed, fingers tangling in my hair. "You'll fight me? You'll lose."  
  
"You CANNOT touch my father's slave like that!" Kado stubbornly answered, fists glowing at his sides.   
  
Epinard tapped the top of my head thoughtfully. "It that all you can say?" He lifted that same hand and began to charge a ki ball. "Won't even admit that the bitch is your mother, will you?"  
  
I vaguely recall fighting him and screaming for Kado to run, that there was no way he could win, but it all got lost in the horrified haze of what happened next.  
  
Epinard pulled his charged hand back and let fly with the energy blast. Kado had the sense to duck... but behind him, Aurek didn't.  
  
I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch ....a large flash of light beat against my eyelids and a high pitched scream met my ears. The smell of fire and burned flesh filled my nose and I resisted the urge to vomit; the smell was horrid... but what it implied was worse.  
  
When I heard Kado's furious snarl, I forced myself to pry my eyes open.  
  
I couldn't find what was left of Aurek... only a smear of his purply blood on the walls and carpet.  
  
But that seemed surreal, almost insignificant in light of what else had happened.  
  
I'd only seen it happen once before. Years and years ago... when I was still just a teenager... before Kado was born... in Vejii's father's court... when I sang a song about the legend of the SuperSaiya-jinn for Freeza...  
  
SUPERSAIYA-JINN  
  
...The word bounced around between my ears, and my breath caught in my throat...  
  
SUPERSAIYA-JINNSUPERSAIYA-JINNSUPERSAIYA-JINNSUPERSAIYA-JINN  
  
"SuperSaiyan...." I whispered, my voice harsh and low. At least, I think it had been me. It could have been Epinard.  
  
Before I could figure out who's voice it had been, I was slammed face first into the floor. I felt my nose break, the blood erupt from tiny gashes made in my skin by the texture of the tiles.  
  
"AUREK!" I heard a scream - the voice vaugely resembled Kado's, but I thought perhaps it could also have been an angered Rurutip. "CHIYUSHO! SHINE! SHINE! SHINE!"  
  
I screamed and covered my head as one energy blast after another ripped through the air, lighting the room aflame. Screams bounced all over, mine mingling with Epinard's and Kado's.  
  
Blood hit my back, hot and sticky and I sobbed.   
  
Was it Epinard's... or Kado's... or MINE?  
  
There was the loud tinkling sound of glass shattering and falling to the tiles around us and I dazedly thought that perhaps Kado's power had burst the window, but I felt someone wrap my discarded towel around me and lift me into the air.  
  
I whimpered and clutched the person's chest, blood on my mangled face.  
  
Oh, it HURT!  
  
Only after I had sobbed myself into exhaustion did I realize that the sounds of battle had ended and the horrifying golden blaze of Kado's aura had vanished.  
  
I opened my eyes and stared into his. They were empty.   
  
"Kado...?" I asked softly, but he did not answer me, he only stared slightly to my left where the purple blood stained the charred carpet.  
  
Then I lifted my eyes painfully to the man who cradled me against his chest.  
  
He smiled back down at me, one eye obscured by an eyepatch. But even with his face scarred and half-covered, I recognized him.  
  
"Kakarotto..."  
  
"My name is Gokuu now." he said softly. "Don't speak. You're hurt."  
  
I shook my head stubbornly. "Epinard?"   
  
Gokuu frowned. "Dead. The boy you just called Kado killed him."  
  
I forced a smile. "Bastard deserved it."  
  
There was a moment of deathly silence.  
  
"Yes." Gokuu agreed. "Yes, he did."  
  
I rolled my head back to Kado. He had begun to scratch at his arms so fiercely, he was drawing blood.  
  
"Stop!" Gokuu shouted, and put me down swiftly before going to grab Kado's wrists. "I know it tingles. It always tingles. But don't rip your skin off."  
  
"SuperSaiyan..." I whispered once more and I had just enough time to see both of them turn their heads to stare at me before the lack of blood in my body made welcome darkness envelop me.  
  
***  
  
Aleta stopped doing her kata long enough to shake out her hair, the teal locks flashing briefly into her eyes. Sweat dripped off of her face and down into her gi top, dampening the beige fabric. The wet cloth clung to her body, the moisture making it incredibly itchy.   
  
She scratched briefly.  
  
Assessing the room, she listened for the sounds that had disturbed her concentration. She turned toward the door when the distant sound of laughter hit her ears.   
  
Lifting her nose into the air a little she sniffed, trying to determine from who the laughter came. She was, after all, half Saiya-jinn, though her teal hair and fur tried to advertise otherwise, and she had a rather keen sense of smell.   
  
Her nose told her that it was just the other children, sparring with each other.   
  
With the sound identified, Aleta wrinkled her nose at her own scent.   
  
Deciding that she'd had enough training for one day (she really wasn't all that much of a fighter, although she still loved to spar with Gokuu), she began to think it was time for a bath in the clear, cool lake just outside of their little compound.   
  
With moves to fast for the human eye, she blurred out the door of her small sparring room and into the kid's arena.   
  
She arrived just in time to intercept a sphere of energy that would have vaporized a lesser being. Aleta merely deflected it with one hand.   
  
"Oi, be quiet." Aleta commanded, and the dozen or so demi-Saiyajinn immediately shut their yaps.   
Aleta, being at 25 the oldest of Gokuu's adopted gang of abandoned halflings, always demanded respect, even when she was not being serious or strict.  
  
Immediately all attention was focussed on her. "I'm going to the lake; you know when to get me." The children looked at her with solemn acknowledgment. They knew by her phrasing that if they met with something they couldn't handle, they should give the pre-determined signal, and she'd be there to help with whatever the trouble was within seconds.  
  
"Hn," she smirked.   
  
The children. Halfling brats, each alone was easily able to defend themselves against any thing on this isolated planet... however, there were a few things NOT from the planet that could give them trouble... like invading Saiyans.   
  
To be sure, they had TRIED to locate the 'SuperSaiyan' known as Kakarotto, but Aleta and he had been outrunning them for years. Now that they had found a place to call home, Aleta and Gokuu-san made sure that each child here -each child saved- knew exactly what the danger was, and how to deal with it.  
  
Aleta shook her head slightly, and gave the kids a dismissing glance. They all nodded and returned their sparring. Reeko, the oldest of them at 13, was lead the fighting. Kami, but he was an arrogant little bastard. He swore up and down he was the son of an Elite Saiyan.  
  
Aleta often laughed at that; not one of the children knew who their parents had been. Most of them did not even know that they were her own brothers or sisters.  
  
Epinard had impregnated and killed many human women in his deranged, sadistic adventures.  
  
Her own mother, Gokuu's childhood friend Bulma, had been no exception.  
  
Gokuu-san often commented on how much like her mother Aleta looked, and how they were smart the same way and had the same kind of temper. Aleta liked to believe it was all true, and often wished that the DragonBalls that Gokuu spoke of so freely still existed.  
  
When Piccolo had died fighting Gokuu's brother Raddittzu, Kami had died with him, and the DragonBalls had vanished forever.  
  
And Aleta wanted to meet her mother, just once. But Bulma had died giving her life. Well, Aleta had long ago decided that she'd just have to wait until she too died, and then she'd search for her mother in heaven.  
  
Shaking herself out of her reverie, Aleta then made sure that Reeko had everything under control, and moved out of the room and into the hall. Gliding quickly down the hall, she evaded a number of booby traps designed to slow down or kill any intruders.   
  
Gokuu-san might be almost invincible, but the children were not, and Aleta wasn't about to take any chances with their safety. They were, after all, her siblings, some by blood, and some only in her heart.  
After a lot of simple explanations, (and a lot of pictures) she had brought Gokuu to understand the need for the traps, and the fact that he was to leave them alone.   
  
At first he thought it was fun to trip them and then out-run the projectiles coming after him.   
  
Aleta snorted slightly to herself as she walked. She had gotten so ticked off at him that she had upped the power of the weapons to be able to keep up with his SuperSaiya-jinn agility when re-setting her traps.   
  
Aleta chuckled at the thought of Gokuu-san's face the last time she had made "adjustments". He had to power up to his SuperSaiyan form to get out of the crude building with his skin intact.   
  
Aleta ran out of the shelter, and gave a feral smile; all tooth, gleaming and sharp. Gokuu-san never ever messed with her "toys" after that.   
  
He now gave them a wide berth.   
  
Following a rough path that led out of the shelter, Aleta followed it around twisting curves to a small crystalline lake. She reached the edge of the water and slowed to a stop.   
  
The greenish purple water looked cool and inviting, and the gi started to really itch and chafe, irritating her soft skin.   
  
Aleta had started to strip out of her clothes when she heard a slight rustle in the bushes. Dropping the gi-top in her hand to the lush grass below her feet, she turned to follow the progress of a shadow that sped from tree to tree behind her.  
  
She considered continuing in her ritual bathing habits, and wait for the intruder to approach and then attack him, but paused with her hand wrapped around the strap of her tank-top. Did she really want to flash this person, who might or might not be a Saiyan male?  
  
Hell, no.  
  
She whipped around and assumed a fighting stance, then swore under her breath when Reeko emerged from the foliage with a devilish grin on his face.  
  
  
"Na!" Aleta snapped. "I thought I said not to bug me!"  
  
  
"Hai." Reeko smirked and offered her a tiny scrap of paper. On it was a message in his juvenile chicken scratch. "But Gokuu-sensei called. Say's he wants you to go to Vejiita-sei in the spare capsule ship."  
  
  
"Nani?" she said softy, green eyes skimming the message.   
  
  
It read:  
  
Gokuu-sensei says: "Come to Vejiita-sei, Aleta-chan! It's fun! There's a new SuperSaiyan, and Epinard is dead now too! You'll like it here, it's very nice!"  
  
  
Aleta rolled her eyes to the heavens. She loved Gokuu-san like a father, but he was sometimes very dim. But, he would not have sent for her if it wasn't safe for her to be there, so she gave up on the bath thing and headed back towards the compound.  
  
  
She could barely disguise her elation at hearing that Epinard had been destroyed, a fact which only betrayed itself in her bouncing lope to the part of the compound in which the ships were hidden.  
  
If Gokuu said he wanted her on Vejiita-sei, then to Vejiita-sei she would go.  
  
***  
  
Many, many hours later -unaware of Aleta and her immanent arrival- I awoke in Ru's bed, alone, my face faintly throbbing and Regen-gel still in my hair. I touched my nose gingerly, fearing it might be broken still, but it was not.  
  
Ah, Kami bless Regeneration Tanks.  
  
I sat up slowly, but large hands pushed me back down.   
  
I screamed and fought against them, thinking they were Epinard's, but Vejii's was the voice that barked out, "Shut up, Maria!"  
  
I did, and stared up at his shadow- laced face. Night had fallen and he had not turned on the lights.  
  
His dark eyes were filled with a pain that came only from sympathy and guilt. I could tell that he felt that it was his fault that this had happened - he should have known Epinard was that sort of man, and he should have put an end his 'mating habits' years ago.  
  
Tears began to well in my eyes when I saw this and I reached up to him. Vejii readily lowered himself onto his knees beside me and accepted my embrace. I clutched Vejii close.   
  
He bent over me so I could cling to him and rubbed my back as I had often done for him as a child as I wept bitterly.  
  
***  
  
After many long hours of this, I was finally out of tears and was calm enough for me to separate myself from Vejii.  
  
"Maria, what happened?" Vejii stared at me intently, his tone intended to soothe. I could see in his expression that he already knew, but that he wanted confirmation.  
  
"E-E-Epinard." I managed to get out around my dry sobs.  
  
Vejii frowned, his forehead wrinkling severely. "I thought as much. The DNA in the blood on your floors matched with him... and a Piux-jinn."  
  
"Aurek." I murmured, tears burning the backs of my eyes and lumping in my throat. "God, my son's best friend. He... didn't see it. He d-didn't d-duck..."  
  
"Ah," Vejii nodded to himself. "And Kado-san?"  
  
I looked up, my eyes wide with terror. "What about Kado?"  
  
"Where is he, Maria?"  
  
"He's ... missing!?" I tried to jumped to my feet, but Vejii held me down.  
  
"No, you're still hurt. It was a nasty smack you got. You've been concussed."   
  
"But, Kado!" I wailed, "I have to find Kado!"  
  
"Shhh." Vejii whispered. "I'm sure he'll turn up. Rurutip has been contacted and he is on his way back, and your chambers are being repaired as we speak. He's a Saiya-jinn. We'll find Kado." He paused momentarily, and then, under his breath, he added, " I promise."  
  
I looked up into his dark eyes. "I know."  
  
Vejii smiled warmly, then remembered himself and stalked out of the bedroom, cape billowing behind him, leaving me cold and alone.  
  
I knew where Kado was... and who he was with.  
  
"Kakarotto..." I whispered through dry lips "Please, take care of him..."  
  
.... and no one answered.  
  
***  
  
END PART TWO 


	3. Aleta

Part Three: "Aleta"  
  
***  
When Rurutip got back to Vejiita-sei that evening, I blurted out the whole story to him.  
  
Kado had returned that afternoon with Kakarotto -no, GOKUU- at his side. He seemed more himself now; there was a soul behind his eyes once more. Gokuu calmly explained to me that Kado had become a SuperSaiyan because of what he had seen being done to me, and because what had happened to Aurek.  
  
Rage releases the SuperSaiyan.  
  
It had been that rage that had been controlling Kado when he had begun to scratch. After I passed out, Kado blindly had tried to destroy Gokuu too, so the elder Saiyan had been forced to drag Kado out into the forest and try to calm him down.  
  
I wondered how it was that a child of such impure blood could be strong enough to be a SuperSaiyan, and Gokuu said that often half-breeds were STRONGER than regular Saiyans, but that no one around here had given them the chance to grow up so they could realize this.  
  
As if to prove this, Gokuu had called his adoptive daughter, a demi-Saiyan named Aleta to come to Vejiita-sei. She was to land just before evening fell that day.  
  
Gokuu himself had known this for years. He had been raising abandoned halflings for nearly two decades.  
  
Rurutip and Vejii both did not believe me when I told them that my Kado had become a SuperSaiyan right in front of my eyes. I protested, and Vejii reluctantly decided that if Kado really were a SuperSaiyan, he'd have to prove it.  
  
We were to meet in secret at the sparring arena on the far side of town before sunset to prove it.  
  
It was in secret because Vejii didn't want anyone else to watch Kado turn into a SuperSaiya-jinn before he did, if I was right - which, in his mind, I was.  
  
Rurutip brought Kado and I, and Gokuu showed up at Kado's request. My son was very nervous, and he feared that he wouldn't able to do it again; he was afraid the King would think him a liar.  
  
He stood on the edge of the ring, waiting for Vejiita to arrive, running his toe through the dust nervously like a little child, and not like the mature and sure thirteen year old he was.  
  
When Vejii arrived, he fell into a fighting pose and told Kado to fight him.  
  
The battle didn't last long. Kado was too unnerved and drained by his earlier experience to think properly, and the King had his face in the dirt soon enough.  
  
"You are no SuperSaiya-jinn!" Vejii crowed, almost as if in relief. "Train harder, Kado. You fought badly."  
  
"Hai, wagakimi." Kado coughed into the dust, and Vejii let him up. My son returned to the side of the ring, his armour and face smudged with dirt.  
  
"Brat!" Rurutip snarled. "You can fight better than THAT!"  
  
"Gomen nasai, Otousan." Kado said meekly, amber eyes covered by his heavy bangs. "I was afraid that I WOULD turn into a SuperSaiyan and hurt the King."  
  
"Idiot!" Ru cursed, and I moved to stay his tongue, but he pushed me away. "No, woman! This is a lesson he MUST learn."  
  
Rurutip dragged Kado back into the ring and threw him to the ground. "Get up and fight me!"  
  
Vejii backed off, an amused look on his face as I clung to Gokuu, unsure of what was about to happen and terrified that someone was going to be seriously injured.  
  
Kado did not move. "I don't want to hurt you," he said gravely.  
  
"Fight me, baka!" Rurutip kicked Kado hard in the ribs and even I heard the snapping sound. Kado coughed and blood speckled his lips.  
  
"No." Kado said, struggling to his feet. "I don't want to hurt you."  
  
"Fight me!" Rurutip yelled and punched Kado square on the nose.   
  
I screamed. "Rurutip, no!" But Vejii told me to shut the hell up and stay out of it.  
  
"This is THEIR fight, Maria." He said, staring intently at the two Saiyans in the ring. He folded his arms across his chest. "The time has come for them."  
  
"No," I breathed in horror, "You don't mean...? It's too soon!" I wailed. "It's too soon!" I tired to run to Rurutip, to stop this, but Gokuu held me back. He too knew that nothing any of us could do would stop this now.  
  
One of them was going to die today.  
  
Rurutip snarled obscenities at Kado, and finally my son lost his temper. He dug his feet into the ground and screamed, his ki flickering to life around him. Ru smiled and followed suit.  
  
But something was wrong, Kado was not stopping where he ought to have. I could still hear Ru's scouter beeping long after Rurutip had finished powering up.  
  
There was a high pitched warning beep, and the scouter proceeded to explode.  
  
Rurutip snapped his head away from the small explosion and turned with wide eyes to his son.  
  
There was a final, guttural scream, and then Kado's aura exploded into gold shimmers of arcing power.  
  
My son had just become a SuperSaiyan.  
  
***  
  
Vejii's jaw dropped to his knees. "No!" he wailed, "How can this be!? NO!"  
  
Rurutip was screaming things along the same lines as Kado launched at him, kicking and punching wildly.  
  
The fight wasn't long, but it was bloody. It ended with Rurutip on the ground, panting heavily, his nose smashed and an arm broken, and Kado standing above him, the final ki sphere prepared.  
  
"No!" I screamed, but neither moved from their grisly tableau. "Kado, please, don't kill him!"  
  
I felt the air around me tingle, and suddenly Gokuu was gone. He appeared in a blur of speed beside Kado.  
  
"Don't." he whispered, and Kado looked up at him.  
  
"I have to. It's the rules. I won, so I have to destroy my father."  
  
"No, you don't." Gokuu said, more serious than I have ever seen him before.  
  
"You have won, boy!" Ru snarled at Kado, yanking his attention off of Gokuu, and Kado took a few hasty steps back, his free hand over his heart as if he were trying to keep it in his chest. "So kill me! It is your duty!"  
  
"But, Otousan..." Kado said softly, his ki sphere dissipating as he lowered his arm. "I don't want to."  
  
"Don't be weak!" Rurutip shouted and I cringed, covering my ears. Ru purposefully rose to his knees and bared his chest to Kado. "You MUST! Don't shame me, brat!"  
  
"Shut-up Rurutip!" I finally snapped, unable to bare the horrible thought of losing him any longer, tears brimming in my eyes. I ran over and grabbed his arm tightly, so tightly I was absurdly afraid my nails would cut his skin.   
  
"But–!" he began, eyes still screwed shut. I fell to the arena floor beside him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders.  
  
"No! Gokuu's right! For once in your life, please, don't be stubborn!" He opened his eyes and turned to stare at me with disbelief. "Rurutip, please. You don't have to die. Kado doesn't HAVE to kill you."  
  
"I don't?" Kado said, amber eyes darting to Vejii, the expression therein halfway between happiness and confusion.  
  
Gokuu took it upon himself to answer, one hand resting lightly on my son's shoulder. "No, you don't, Kado-san. Where I am from, everyone, no matter their age, is valuable. Just because you are stronger than your father, that doesn't mean he isn't useful anymore. He is an intelligent fighter, I saw as much. There is still much he could teach you – teach all of us, actually. There was a move in there that I'd really like to learn."  
  
Kado looked to Vejii, his brother figure, for confirmation.  
  
"Whatever!" Vejii threw up his hands and turned his back on our gathering, seething. "YOU'RE the SuperSaiya-jinn, Kakarotto. What you say goes! If you want to destroy a millennia old tradition, I cannot stop you!"  
  
With a growl of fury, Vejii flew from the sparring arena. I was sorely tempted to go after him, but didn't want to leave Ru.  
  
"Go on," Gokuu said softly, having read my expression, "Make sure he's alright. I'll look after Rurutip and Kado."  
  
"Arigato." I whispered in return, then turned to Ru, and pressed my lips to his. "I love you," I said. "I could never watch you die. It would kill me."  
  
There was a small awkward pause, then Ru lifted his whole arm, not the one that was hanging limply by his side, and pulled me forward for another, more passionate kiss.  
  
It lasted far longer, and Kado actually turned away.  
  
When we pulled our mouths apart, Rurutip sneered. "Bitch."   
  
***  
  
I found Vejii in his rooms, stalking back and forth, smashing everything he could get his hands on against the wall.  
  
I ducked almost foolishly as a vase shattered next to the door when I entered and I squeaked. He heard me and turned to face me, his expression livid.  
  
"This is all your fault!" he snarled and came forward to grab my arm and drag me in. I didn't resist, knowing he was in a fury and fighting would only make him madder. He yanked me into his face as he raged. "All this! My kingdom is no longer mine! I am no longer the strongest! I do not rule; Kakarotto does, and your bastard son! THEY are the SuperSaiyans, not I!"  
  
"Vejii, please, calm down..." I whispered, and in response he hurled me onto the bed. I rolled along it and hit my head on the wall, but not enough to make me anything more than breathless.  
  
"Shut up! You've caused enough trouble with your senseless words!" He yanked the royal pendant off from around his neck, the beads of the necklace spilling onto the floor. "This! THIS! It's MEANINGLESS!"  
  
"Vejii..." I said calmly sitting up, swaying only slightly.  
  
He stared at me, eyes wide and jaw slack in wonder. The pendant slid from his fist to thump pathetically against the carpet. Vejii soon followed, all of his weight slamming violently down onto his knees. He bent over them, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes like a small child.  
  
After a few moments I realized that the tremors that played along his strained back and the hiccuping sounds he was making were not anger, they were SOBS. Vejii was wailing with more sorrow than I have heard in anyone in my entire life.  
  
"Oh, Vejiita..." I said softly and slid off the bed to hold my little King.  
  
He squeezed back, afraid that if I let him go, he'd be alone forever.   
  
"I didn't h-have t-to ..." he wailed as he pressed his face into my neck, his hot tears spilling onto my shoulder. "I d-didn't h-have to k-kill Ot-tousaaaaaaan......."  
  
"I know, Vejii," I whispered, rocking him back and forth in my embrace. "I know."  
  
***  
  
As this was happening, Aleta had arrived on Vejiita-sei and was waiting in the Royal Gardens outside of the palace, watching the sky turn from rose to crimson in the bleeding daylight as she waited for Gokuu to come and collect her.   
  
When she heard Vejii's muffled sobs coming from his open window, she sought out the sound, found it, and peered in.  
  
She recognized Vejii as the King of Vejiita-sei - a man she had come to hate without ever meeting before. She despised him for letting so many soldiers run wild all over the empire and create the kind of misery that she had endured: that which came from the knowledge that one was a bastard child conceived during a rape.  
  
But what she saw made her heart wrench like she never thought it would for the arrogant asshole-Prince.  
  
"So, he can feel after all..." she muttered to herself, and turned away, deciding to seek out Gokuu herself.  
  
***  
  
When Vejii came back to himself, the anger returned.  
  
He demanded that Gokuu and this bastard child of his be brought to his meeting room immediately, and his face was so red as he barked out these orders that I feared for his sanity.  
  
I had never before seen him so upset.  
  
Gokuu arrived, smiling happily, tail wagging, chatting absent mindedly with the guard. Aleta - a lovely young lady with long silky blue-green hair pulled up into a ponytail and a long thin tail of the same shade - was less than thrilled, and it was obvious by her narrowed green eyes. She was acting as if the King held them both prisoner.  
  
In a way, he was. There was no way they'd ever get off Vejiita-sei now without his permission. Or no, Gokuu, I'm sure, could have blasted his way off-world as a SuperSaiyan, so what I mean is: there'd be no way for them to leave the planet PEACEFULLY.  
  
Rurutip and Kado had arrived shortly before that at my request, and Rurutip had explained to Vejii the details of the situation in which Gokuu - formerly known as Kakarotto - and I had first met, and how he had been forced into being a SuperSaiyan and killing Freiza.  
  
He neglected to mention that Gohan had been murdered by the afore mentioned monster and I made sure to correct this oversight.  
  
Vejii absorbed all of this -so too did Kado, I noticed- and was considerably more calm by the time Gokuu and Aleta entered the room.  
  
Vejii graciously offered them seats on the couches around the low table in the centre of the room, and Gokuu said "Sure!" and plopped down. This was not the determined and abused man I remembered meeting so many years earlier; he had changed. He had become more carefree and loving. He was so... OPEN.  
  
Of course, it could also be the fact that this time, his life was not threatened, nor that of his child. At least, not to him, it wasn't. But the silent menace in the room was more than obvious to everyone BUT him.   
  
Aleta, on the other hand, was very guarded and declined to sit, which offended Vejii greatly.  
  
I saw it from my seat next to Rurutip, and whispered up at her, "Perhaps you should sit, my dear."  
  
She blinked down at me, arms crossed over her chest, and said far too loudly "Why should I? Just because this jerk says so?" Vejii visibly bristled, his teeth bared, and I nearly choked on my teeth. "He's not MY King."  
  
"I am so." Vejii snapped, rising to his own feet. "I rule EVERYONE in this galaxy."  
  
"Not me," Aleta sneered, turning her back to him in a glaringly obvious gesture of disrespect. "I was left to DIE by you and your Empire! My mother was MURDERED by one of your soldiers. I don't consider myself a part of the Saiya-jinn race! I am a human!"  
  
Vejii snarled. "Then you are not my subject but my SLAVE! And I order you to SIT!"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Yes!"   
  
I whined and clapped my hands over my ears, knowing that Vejii was going to beat the shit out of her any second now.  
  
"Oi, Aleta-chan." Gokuu smiled and tugged on her belt. "These chairs are comfy. Sit beside me."  
  
Vejii and Aleta both turned to the older Saiyan and I marvelled at how well he had diffused the potentially lethal situation with such ease as Aleta took a seat beside him.  
  
"Okay, Gokuu-san." She pouted, glaring pointedly at Vejii. "But only because you asked me to."  
  
The king fumed silently and sat in his own individual chair, arms crossed and a furious scowl on his face.  
  
Gokuu then looked around and said, "This is a nice place, Vejiita. Don't you think so, honey?"  
  
He turned to Aleta, who only thinned her lips slightly in response. Vejii snapped, "You will refer to me as Vejiita-SAMA, you low class bastard."  
  
"Sure." Gokuu shrugged, then turned his eyes to me. "Hey, I remember you now. You're that girl from when I turned SuperSaiyan that first time."  
  
I blushed and nodded slowly, feeling Rurutip growl. I shot him a look that said to shut up and don't be jealous.  
  
Suddenly serious, Gokuu leaned forward and said, " I never got a chance to say this before: Thank you for looking after Gohan."  
  
Tears suddenly stung the backs of my eyes, but I blinked them away, refusing to cry in front of Kado. "You're welcome," I rasped.  
  
"Enough!" Vejii snarled. I did not bring you here to blabber about stupid little things!"  
  
Gokuu, un-offended that Vejii had called his son's death a 'stupid little thing', turned his attention to the king.   
  
Vejii slammed a fist down on his own knee. "Kakarotto, you will teach me to be a SuperSaiyan, is that understood!? I demand that you reveal all your secrets to me!"  
  
Aleta immediately jumped to her feet. "You can't tell him what to do like that!"  
  
"Yes, I can!" Vejiita snarled in response, once again leaping up so he was eye level with the demi-Saiyan female before him. "I am the King! I can do whatever I want!"  
  
"Oh, yeah, hot shit?!" She snarled and I yelped.  
  
Vejii curled his hands into fists and threw one towards Aleta. Gokuu ducked and yelled, "Yeah! Show him how good you are, Aleta!"  
  
Rurutip smirked as I screamed and said, "Shut up, Ningen. Let the King beat respect into her. She'll learn." Kado only nodded in agreement.  
  
Aleta dodged the punch and flipped through the air out of his reach. Vejii followed her, furious, and attacked.  
  
They began to move at speeds too fast for me to follow, although I could tell where they were by what broke and when.  
  
It seemed forever, but it must have only been a few minutes before there was a loud cracking sound and I saw Aleta slam into the wall behind me and slump to the floor, blood on her face.  
  
Vejii appeared before her, no less beat up, but still standing at least. I wanted to stop the fight, but as I began to move, Rurutip wrapped his tail around my wrist and hissed, indicating that I was to stay out of it.  
  
Gokuu didn't look as concerned as I thought he should. He merely sat back on the couch, his arms thrown over the backing, a silly grin on his face. As if he knew that Vejii would not be able to harm Aleta seriously.  
  
"You're not bad, bitch." Vejii panted down at his vanquished opponent, and she stirred briefly, not looking up. "I want to fight you again. You will meet me in my Royal Sparring Room at day break, you understand me?"  
  
She said nothing, so he assumed it was a yes. Then he turned to Gokuu. "And you. You will stay in the palace and teach me your secrets. All of them. I WILL be a SuperSaiya-jinn."  
  
Gokuu shrugged, and grinned. "I've never stayed in a palace before. Is the food good?"  
  
Vejii smirked his most amused and toothy grin. "The best in the universe."  
  
"That's great." the elder Saiyan smiled and got to his feet, leaning over the table to clap Vejii on the back. Rurutip tensed and Kado's eyes went wide.  
  
NO ONE touched the King without permission!  
  
"See ya in the morning, Vejiita!" Gokuu then grinned and went over to where Aleta was still on the floor. He picked her up and strolled out of the room.  
  
"Vejiita-SAMA!" Vejii screeched after them, a vein protruding on his forehead.  
  
***  
  
After bidding my King a hasty good-night, I told Rurutip I'd meet him back in our rooms and ran after Gokuu.  
  
I told him where the Regeneration Tanks were, and he thanked me, taking Aleta there.  
  
I stared after him with disbelief and shook my head slowly. "You two are going to get yourselves killed."  
  
***  
  
"She's arrogant! Insolent! Rude!" Vejii screamed as he paced back and forth in his chambers, and I sat on the edge of his bed with a sympathetic look on my face. "She acts as if SHE is the superior and deliberately rubs her knowledge of technology in my face!" he turned to me abruptly with a snarl. "Maria! She's a snobby, know-it-all BITCH!"  
  
"I TOLD you you wouldn't like sparring with her." I said softly. "Vejii, you know what Aleta thinks of you. She's made it more than clear. Why do you suffer through her insults?"  
  
He said nothing and I tried to probe for more information. He had been sparring daily with Aleta for almost two weeks now, and each day he came away from their fights with more anger than the day before. It had actually begun to affect his decisions as a King, and I had taken it upon myself to try to calm him down – if I could actually figure out what the problem was.  
  
"Vejii, she can't be that good a fighter. I don't see how your spars could help improve your technique at all. Why do you bother if you can't stand her?"  
  
He stared at me hard with narrowed eyes then turned on his heel and marched towards the door. Just before he left he looked back over his shoulder and said. "Because she's pretty when she's mad."  
  
I blinked and stared after him with huge eyes. Then I fell backwards onto his bed and began to laugh.  
  
***  
  
"I want to go off-world." Vejii announced, straightening from his defensive position to stare Gokuu in the eye.  
  
Gokuu paused in his own katas and stared at the King. They'd been sparring for almost three months now, and Vejii had never mentioned something like this before.  
  
"Why?" he asked, scratching his ear casually. "The food here is good."  
  
"I don't CARE about the FOOD, baka!" Vejii snarled. "There is a planet at the outer rim of this Solar System with gravity ten times that of Vejiita-sei. I want to train there."  
  
"Oh." Gokuu paused for a moment. Then he shrugged. "Sure, if you want to. Have fun, Vejii."  
  
"Kakarotto!" Vejii snapped, tugging at his hair. "If you're going to disrespect me by using my familiar name, at LEAST use the WHOLE THING!"  
  
"But," Gokuu sighed and sat down. "Maria calls you Vejii."  
  
"That's different." Vejii snarled, then sat down himself, his brain more weary than his body. Gokuu was an idiot, plain and simple, and it was beginning to drive him nuts.   
  
"I don't see how."  
  
Vejiita sighed and stared up at the ceiling, deciding that he'd rather meditate than talk with the idiot SuperSaiyan.  
  
"You're coming too," he said after a long while, and Gokuu sent him a puzzled glance.   
  
"Coming where?"  
  
"Training with me!" Vejii jumped to his feet and stalked over to Gokuu and hit him upside the head. "Are there no brains in that skull of yours!?"  
  
"Um... yeah." Gokuu grinned, rubbing the sore spot. "But Bulma always said they're scrambled. Like eggs." He paused for a moment and licked his lips. "Chichi used to make the best scrambled eggs."  
  
Vejii stared at Gokuu for a moment, then knelt in front of the elder Saiyan. It was rare that Gokuu ever spoke of his life before the Saiyans came to Earth, and Vejii was always a curious man, so he probed for more information about these 'Bulma' and 'Chichi' people.  
  
"Who's Chichi?" He asked gruffly, moving into a lotus position.  
  
Gokuu leaned back on his hands and closed his eyes. "She was my wife. She was... she was beautiful."  
  
Vejii snorted. "A Chikyuu-jinn bitch, huh? Raddittzu told me you'd had a mate and brat."  
  
"Don't talk about my wife like that!" Gokuu suddenly snapped, and Vejii blinked.  
  
"Why are you so protective, baka? She's DEAD."  
  
Gokuu's voice lowered dangerously and his one visible eye narrowed. "I love her, and I won't let anyone say bad things about my Chichi."  
  
"Love." Vejii sneered, and he turned his face away, disturbed by the intense emotion found in Kakarotto's. "There's no such thing."  
  
"Yes, there is." Gokuu whispered. "I loved Chichi with all my heart. And I loved my Gohan too. Sometimes..." he put is hand over his heart and his face twisted as if he was in the most excruciating physical pain imaginable. "I would have died, for them. I wish I had died. And then they could be alive."  
  
Vejiita starred at Gokuu with a look of mild horror on his face. "You would have given your life for a bitch and a brat? You would have given up the chance to be a SuperSaiyan."  
  
"That's what love is." Gokuu said simply. To him, there was no confusion in this. "When you care enough about someone to want to die to keep them from being hurt... that's what love is."  
  
Vejiita looked down at his hands, which were resting limply in his lap. "...Love..." he whispered.  
  
Gokuu slowly climbed to his feet and put a tender hand on Vejii's shoulder. "That's enough for today," he said and turned to walk away.  
  
"Tell me more." Vejii demanded, climbing to his feet and Gokuu paused. "Tell me who Bulma was."  
  
Gokuu shrugged. "She was my first friend. She was really smart, like Aleta is, with machines and stuff. She was Aleta's mom. I... miss her a lot."  
  
Vejii stiffened. "So that's why that battle with Epinard was so personal. He killed your friend."  
  
Gokuu only nodded.   
  
"This... this love thing." Vejii said quietly. "How do you know when you're in love?"  
  
Again, Gokuu only shrugged. "You .... just know, y'know?" Vejii shot him a puzzled glance, and Gokuu leaned back against the sparring-room wall, face scrunched in pure concentration. "Like, one day you see a girl and you think, 'Wow she's really nice and pretty and smart, and I really really like her...' Like, that's love, sorta."  
  
"Oh." Vejiita whispered, then turned his back to Gokuu and moved to the windows at the far side of the room.  
  
Gokuu took that as his cue to leave. But before he could make it to the door, Vejii called out once more: "Kakarotto?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You... loved Chichi?"  
  
Gokuu sighed, "Yeah."  
  
"And... does Maria love Rurutip?"  
  
"Yeah, I think so."  
  
"Does.... do you think anyone will ever love me?"  
  
Gokuu shrugged. "Wait and find out. I bet a nice girl will love you one day."  
  
Silence met his reply and Gokuu exited the room. As the doors hissed shut behind him, Vejiita murmured, "Thank you.... Gokuu."  
  
***  
  
It took a few days for the preparations to be made for Gokuu and Vejiita's journey on their Training Hiatus, during which both realized that Kado ought to go with them, as a SuperSaiyan himself.  
  
My son was thrilled beyond all reasoning, but upset that Aleta was not allowed to go too. They had become very good friends over the past three months.  
  
Gokuu said that he did not want Aleta there with just the three guys. He insisted that Chichi had always said that "A real Lady does not stay with a bunch of smelly men all alone," and he had the firm belief that Aleta was a real lady.  
  
Vejii said that he did not need the distraction of such a 'stupid, weakling bitch.'  
  
Which, of course, meant, 'I wouldn't be able to think with her around.'  
  
Just before they were to leave, I accosted Vejii in his chambers and said, "You have to promise me something."  
  
"What?" he smirked.  
  
"That you won't kill Gokuu once you become a SuperSaiyan."  
  
"Stupid woman." Vejii's sneer softened a little, like it always did when I was around. "When I become a SuperSaiyan, I won't NEED to kill Kakarotto. I'll be far stronger than him, and I'll be able to whatever I want. He'll be useful to keep around. Imagine, my own band of SuperSaiyans."  
  
"Hai." I whispered. "About that. Please, Vejii, the Empire has become a much nicer place since you took the throne. Please, don't hurt any more people with your new power."  
  
He looked slightly aghast at my boldness, but his expression slid into sympathy when he saw the tears in my eyes.  
  
"Maria. If this universe had stayed the way Freiza had it, people like you would have disappeared. And people like Kado and Kakarotto. Who knows had other sorts of treasures and knowledge I can attain by keeping the Empire peaceful?" he smiled down at me, one hand running down the side of my face with a soft gentleness. "I would not loose that for the chance to be tenfold more powerful than a SuperSaiyan."  
  
I nodded, thanking him silently.  
  
"Besides," he said, turning his back to me to finish packing up his last set of armour. "I would not have met my Mate."  
  
"Mate?" I called after him, confused by his sudden announcement that he had found himself a warrioress suitable to be his wife. "Who? Vejii-chan!" I called out as he walked away from me.  
"WHO!?"  
  
***  
  
END PART THREE 


	4. ... I'd Love To Hear Your Story

Part Four : "... and I'd Love To Hear Your Story"  
"Do you know Vejiita-sama well?" Aleta asked me about two days after our three Saiyans had left for their training vacation. She had been lonely in her rooms without Gokuu, and so I had offered to let her sleep in Kado's room until they came back, and she had accepted.  
  
We had found that we got along fairly well.  
  
I put down the music I had been skimming and looked up at her. She stood on the far side of the room, still poised as if she were about to begin her katas. Her long teal hair fell into her eyes momentarily and she blew it away with a puff of breath from peach lips. Then she turned her glittering green eyes back to me.  
  
Kami, she was a lovely young woman.  
  
"Yes." I said. "I was the closest thing he had to a mother growing up."  
  
"Oh." She said, shrugged as if this information was unimportant, and resumed her workout. Then she paused, looked at me, took in as breath as if about to speak, then shrugged again and went back to work. This happened about three times, until the curiosity became too much.  
  
That pretty little teal tail of hers began to wave back and forth and she came to sit at the table with me.  
  
"Was he always such a prick?" She asked, looking my directly in the eye.  
  
I blinked in shock, then began to laugh. She looked at me with a puzzled expression for a moment, and then I said, "That's just the way he is. All Saiyans are like that. They just can't show their feelings, it makes them seem weak."  
  
"But..." she ventured slowly, eyes dropping to follow her finger as she absent mindedly traced along the lines of my sheet music. "... he DOES feel them, right?"  
  
"Yes." I said, my suspicion growing, "Why?"  
  
"Oh, nothing." she responded hastily and I smiled.  
  
"Do you have a crush on the King?" I chuckled.  
  
She sputtered for a moment before shouting "No!"  
  
I smirked knowingly, then bowed my head to my work once more. She shrugged again -a habit I had noticed she shared with Gokuu - and got back up, starting her katas all over again.  
  
"You know..." I said after a few long moments, and she looked back at me. "Vejii really likes women in the colour green."  
  
"Green?" she looked at me blankly for a moment, and I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively. The proverbial lightbulb switched on and she said, "Green! But... I don't OWN anything GREEN!"  
  
"I do." I said, standing and ushering her into the bedroom and towards my closet.  
  
***  
  
"Again!" Vejii demanded and Kado and Gokuu exchanged a glance.  
  
"Are you certain, my Lord?" Kado said, panting heavily, sweat dripping from his face.  
  
"Yeah Vejiita," Gokuu scratched his head, only mildly out of breath. "Are you up to it?"  
  
Vejii snarled, displaying impressive canines. "I cannot become a SuperSaiyan if I do not train, so ATTACK ME!"  
  
Both Kado and Gokuu shrugged, hopped up into SuperSaiyan, and launched themselves at Vejii.  
  
***  
  
Six months later, word arrived on Vejiita-sei that the King had returned from his 'training hiatus' and was going to be arriving on the largest landing platform in the capitol that afternoon.  
  
Aleta and I met Rurutip there and waited eagerly for our boys to return.  
  
The first off the ship was Gokuu, to whose arms Aleta ran immediately with a loud and long, "Goooookuuuuuuuu-saaaaaaaaaaaan!" She jumped up and Gokuu caught her, spinning the two of them in the air.  
  
The next to come down the platform was my son. He bowed stoically in front of his father, but I could see the pride shining in both their eyes. He then turned to me and gave me an affectionate but brief hug.  
  
"Otousan, Okassan."   
  
"Oi, brat." Rurutip whispered. "Did the King work you hard?"  
  
"Hai, Otousan."  
  
"Good."  
  
Then all eyes turned to Vejii.  
  
"I have something to show all of you!" He said loudly, making sure everyone on the landing platform heard. "A new era has arrived for our Empire! The Legend LIVES!!"  
  
There was an immediate moment of silence as Vejii's regal and confidant gaze skimmed along the crowd gathered, and I was relieved that for the first time in a very long time, he was acting like his old 'holier-than-thou' self.  
  
Vejii smiled smugly and snapped his fingers. The air around him caught fire and I shielded my eyes. When the intense light had faded enough for me to look up, I gasped in shock.  
  
Vejiita had become a SuperSaiyan!  
  
A great cheer went up from all gathered, and before I knew it, a party had somehow begun, and I was dancing in the arms of Kado.  
  
***  
  
Three days after my boys returned home, a great ball was given in honour of Vejii's first SSJ transformation. Of course, the people thought he had done it on his own, without the training and help of Kado and Gokuu.  
  
They were never to know that my son had reached SuperSaiyan before the King - it was simply not possible to them, so we let the populace think it true.  
  
To have someone -anyone- more powerful than the King was an unthinkable blasphemy. Not only did it mean that Vejiita was no longer the strongest and therefore unfit to rule, it meant that a halfling, an unpure Saiyan was what the Empire had fallen to.  
  
They would see Kado's success as an omen that the Empire was doomed.  
  
So, unwilling to create anarchy, a secret agreement had been reached.  
  
In return for teaching him the secrets of the SuperSaiyan, Gokuu demanded that Vejii become more humane in his practices. The empire was no longer allowed to purge entire civilizations for profit.  
  
This demand rankled Vejii, but his greed eventually won through and he accepted. He wanted so badly to be the SuperSaiyan, just as his late older brother had.  
  
It turned out, though, that not only was this deal better for the planets that had been meant to be purged, it was better for the Empire as well. All the expenses that had formally gone into patching up broken Soldiers and spacepods, making deals and treaties, and the general spending that was present in ANY war - technological development, funerals, mass amounts of food for starving and exhausted warriors - could now be used to better their own planet and those they ruled.  
  
The quality of life went up all over the galaxy. Slowly, at first, but after even a few months the changes were beginning to become obvious. People no longer had to fear that they were next on the Saiyan's list, and so became more willing to open their planets to trade and enterprise.  
  
The Empire became a sort of "Galactic Village", much as earth had become a Global Village in the late Twentieth century.  
  
But that's me getting ahead of myself yet once more... at the time of the ball, these changes had only just begun to occur.  
  
Gokuu and I sat alone at a table on the far side of the room from the throne where Vejii was watching over the festivities with a superior eye. He sure had gotten mighty cocky since he could transform into an SSJ, and he rarely ever fell out of it. He was trying very hard to make being in SSJ as natural as possible, so he remained blond and green-eyed at absolutely all times.  
  
I bet he was the first blond to ever sit in that throne.  
  
Rurutip was out sparring with Celik, who had returned to the planet for the celebration. They had been at the party for a while, until Celik had proclaimed with an arrogant smirk that he was probably strong enough to be an Elite now.  
  
Rurutip had given him a look that said 'oh yeah?' and they had retreated to a sparring room to see who was right.  
  
I didn't mind being left alone with Gokuu, he was pleasant company despite his inability to hold a conversation. Sometimes he was the most intelligent person I knew... and then he'd be as dumb as a door-nail.  
  
I often wondered how much of Kakarotto was really still there in him.  
  
  
Movement from where Kado and Aleta had been re-filling their stomachs at the buffet on the far wall caught our attention. A guard said something to Aleta and gestured towards the King.  
  
Aleta stared at him for a moment and then nodded, following the soldier to the dias. Vejii offered her a seat on the floor beside his feet - a very gracious thing to do, as no one was ever allowed that close to him in public, not even me - and leaned down to whisper a few things in her ear.  
  
She nodded and together they got to their feet.  
  
Gokuu made a confused grunt, and I smiled. I knew that look on Vejii's face. He had been muttering to himself about choosing a mate for weeks before he and Kado and Gokuu had gone off world.  
  
It seemed in his time away from Vejiita-sei, he had decided who he wanted.  
  
"What is he doing?" Gokuu said, sitting up rigidly. "Why is Aleta-chan going with him? Where are they going?"  
  
I chuckled softly. Gokuu was so naive sometimes, but his determination to protect his late best friend's daughter from all Saiyans was touching.  
  
"I think they're going somewhere private." I sighed. "Vejii had been asking me a lot of questions about Aleta in the last two days. I guess I know why now." I smiled roughishly, then leaned over to whisper in Gokuu's ear, being quiet enough that the nearby music drown my words to all but him. "Do you want to remind him she's half Chikyuu-jinn... or shall I?"  
  
Gokuu frowned, eyebrows pulling down to such a degree that half of one was lost under his eyepatch. "I don't want Vejiita around Aleta."  
  
"You can't stop him." I sighed. "Vejii has decided." I pointed to where he had begun to lead Aleta out of the room towards his private chambers. "And she has too, or she wouldn't be going willingly. They're going to be mates, Gokuu."  
  
"No." he snapped and began to move towards them, but I grabbed his arm and he allowed me to pull him back to his seat at the table. "I don't want her with him!"  
  
"Gokuu," I said in a slightly pleading tone. "They've chosen each other."  
  
He said nothing, face as dark as a thundercloud.   
  
"Gokuu, what was your mate's name?" I asked softly, and he turned to blink at me.   
  
After a long pause he said, "Chichi."  
  
"Chichi." I echoed. "That's a very pretty name. Was she beautiful?"  
  
"Yes." He hung his head. "She was the most beautiful woman on Earth."  
  
I placed one of my delicate hands over his. "Did you love her?"   
  
"Oh, yes!" he groaned, melting into his seat.  
  
I cupped his chin in my other hand and forced him to meet my eyes. "Would you deny Aleta and Vejiita that same love?"  
  
He looked at me hard and long, then groaned and hid his face in his large hands.   
  
"No."  
  
***  
  
I wouldn't allow Vejii to continue the tradition of killing the newborn Prince's mother after he had been weened, but Vejii really didn't seem to mind that we had destroyed yet another foundation of his society this time.  
  
He really did love Aleta. It took me a few months to nag it into him, but he realized it eventually.  
  
Thus, Aleta was alive to see her son ascend to the throne of Vejiita-sei, his clear blue eyes sparkling with pride as his father graciously stepped aside and placed the Royal Seal around his neck.  
  
Setsun-Vejiita was a very good boy, and Vejii and Aleta loved him a lot. They had done a very good job of raising him. Gokuu tells me that Setsun, who was forever tinkering with technology to try to find yet another way for the Empire to improve, had a lot of his Grandmother Bulma in him. I didn't doubt it.  
  
And I loved Setsun too. I came to think of him as one of my own grandchildren. Kado's boys, Aurek and Ruratin, were as intelligent and loveable as their father, but both had the thick black hair and gruff disposition of their grandfather, and the sharp tongue of their mother.  
  
Kado's mate - Nanbas - and I never completely got along, for she still thought like her fore-bearers had; I was a slave and had no business getting my nose into Kado's choices. But she respected me for being so devoted to my boys, and I respected her for being able to deal with Kado's silly 'reading' habits and human mannerisms, and that was enough.  
  
Ru and I never had anymore children, but Kado and Vejii were enough for me.  
  
And soon enough Reeko and the rest of Gokuu's wild gang of halflings moved onto Vejiita-sei and were integrated into society, finally finding for themselves the mates and families that they hadn't had before. Some of them even found their blood fathers or mothers.  
  
And I was happy.  
  
I AM happy.  
  
I am old, worn, weathered, and fragile, but I have lived long enough to see the entire universe change into a better place because of one song I sang so many years ago.  
  
And I am no longer ashamed that I am a slave. I am not a slave anymore, not really. Only in name.  
  
I am a loved mother and mate, a friend to many, a guardian to some, and loved by few.  
  
I am going to die one day, there is no avoiding that - but one thing is certain:  
  
I am going to die with a smile on my lips.  
  
And when I do, I would be more than glad to meet you in heaven.  
  
I'd love to hear YOUR story.  
  
***  
  
THE END  
(series conclusion) 


End file.
